


Moab

by Parhelion



Category: The People - Zenna Henderson
Genre: Historical, I promise original characters are canonical to this fandom, M/M, Psionics, Religious Themes & References, Yuletide 2008, american west
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parhelion/pseuds/Parhelion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whither thou goest, I shall go. Thy people shall be my people."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moab

**Author's Note:**

> Written for riverlight.

I

Some folks, even among the People, are born dissenters. I am one of them.

Maybe I am a contrary by nature, or maybe I am too strange for a simple life. Whatever the reasons might be, I have often made my decisions by choosing an obscure alternative. Clearly, I am destined to follow a route back to the Presence too odd and twisty for most men's tastes. Nevertheless, I feel my deviations have served me well down through the years, and never more so than the first time I faced an important choice, back in Moabi Colony soon after I turned seven.

When I arrived as an infant foundling, a survivor of the train wreck that had killed my parents, Moabi was already a failure. Some of my earliest memories are of the insects eating up the fruit trees, the Rio Grande flooding the croplands, and the salt cedars spreading across the New Mexican acres on which the Believers had chosen to build their religious utopia for orphans. The orphans knew that the Colony had been dying for years, but grownups often need a while longer to see what is in front of their faces. However, by 1901 even our leaders understood that their sacred venture was bankrupt.

Once the Believers realized what was happening, we kids were lucky to have Miss Wallace close at hand. She had long been one of our caretakers, the one who had taught us our sums, table manners, and the names of the stars that blazed overhead during clear desert nights. After all the folks who had been freeloading on the Believers drifted off, leaving the remaining handful of adults - good people, as I remember them - paralyzed with indecision and remorse, she rescued us. She narrowed her eyes, pinned on an old picture hat she had retrieved from I do not know where, and sallied forth to find us kids places to live before the Colony's last few dollars were spent. For the most part, she succeeded, doing well enough in her quest that, by May, I was the only child left for her to situate. I do not blame her for leaving me until last; I was a distinct and difficult case.

One evening, she kept me back to talk after supper in the dining commons, where I had lots of room with both of my former bench mates, Pathodices and Diyoshen, shipped off to new homes in Las Cruces. A kerosene lantern flickered and smoked above us, hanging from a hook on the wall over the long table. Nobody had refilled it. With most of the orphans already gone, simple chores were not getting done.

Miss Wallace gave me a stern look, checking to make sure that I was paying attention. I was. Recently she had taken to dressing like an outsider lady and so her long, salt-and-pepper hair was piled up on top of her head in a bun. I was fascinated by the hairpins that held it in place. They had a tendency to work loose and fall out as she spoke.

"Now, then, Buddia," she said.

"Miss?"

"What are we to do with you?"

I guess I looked confused.

"You know that all the children must leave Moabi."

"Yup." Catching myself kicking at a bench leg, I stopped. Believers valued civilized behavior, and my hating what was happening was a weak excuse.

Watching me, Miss Wallace took in a deep breath and let it out again. "Do you know where you would like to live? At the children's home in Denver, for example? Perhaps the foundling's refuge in El Paso?"

"I'm going with you." Maybe she had not mentioned the alternative I found so obvious because most of the orphans did not favor her, even though I knew she was the caretaker who loved us best. She might have been plain and a little strict, but there was a pretty sound that always floated around her, one that made me think of hand bells ringing out a tune softened by distance. I listened, even if the others did not.

She sure seemed surprised by my decision, though. "My dear--"

"I'm going wherever you go. Denver or El Paso. Las Cruces. I don't care."

"My dear, I am going to leave the Believers. I will need to find work."

"I can work, too. I always do chores as best as I know how. I bet I can learn more." Eager to prove my point, I flew to fetch down the flickering kerosene lamp from its hook overhead.

"Buddia!"

Seven feet above the plank floor I froze, hovering with my hands still clutching the lamp's wire handle. Dang, I should have used the lamp pole like the older kids did. Miss Wallace had told me and told me not to show off by flying in front of other people. Our Eutepsoi Bible was firmly against fomenting envy between the Believers by boasting of one's special gifts, thus impeding the spiritual growth of all. Feeling guilty, I flew back down to my bench.

Miss Wallace was rubbing her temples, eyes closed, as if she had a headache coming on. One of her hairpins was working loose, but I knew better than to say that just now. Instead, I tried kicking at my bench leg a few more times before I blurted out, "I can be an outsider, wearing trousers and all that stuff instead of the holy gown. I even know some of the Outmoded Scriptures. 'Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler.'" The caretakers had taught us that one.

"I take your point," she said. "I take both of your points, including the one you may not have meant to make." For a while longer, she considered me. I considered her right back. Maybe the pretty sound around her was too much of an inner noise for the other kids to heed. Hearing inner noises seemed to be like flying, not something that everyone could do. I would have to be more careful in the future.

Miss Wallace interrupted my thoughts. "Very well. I suppose it is best that you come along with me." Her chin went up a little. "You are correct that we will have to make some changes in our habits if we are to leave the Colony together. You had better begin by calling me Aunt Grace."

"Yes, Aunt Grace," I said. Liking the sound of those words, I smiled.

"And we had best alter your given name, as well. Buddia. Buddia. Buddy?"

"Bud?" I countered.

Her nod was brisk. "That will do. I will speak to the elders tomorrow about obtaining worldly clothing for you." She fixed me with another of her stern looks. "However, as my nephew, there will be absolutely no use of your gift where outsiders can see. You will find that outsiders are even easier to rouse into envy than Believers are."

"Yes, Mi-- Aunt Grace."

"Then we are agreed." She held out a long, slim hand, and I put mine in hers. My small hand was likely grubby, but her grip was firm and warm.

Just that simply, I made the first odd choice that shaped the rest of my life, picking a family rather than being born to one. It is a decision that I have never regretted. Because of Aunt Grace, I would not grow to manhood in loneliness and fear.

***

We lived all over the West in the years that followed our exile from Moabi, and our lives were never easy but were mostly happy. Aunt Grace found work through an agency that sent out one-room schoolteachers to difficult and obscure locations, presenting herself to the locals as a spinster raising an orphaned nephew as best she could. Looking back, she was good at what she did; school boards often asked her to stay on, but we always left after a year or two. Sometimes our moves were due to restlessness, but usually we shifted because talk was building up. Tiny settlements are terrible for gossip.

Only once, I am proud to say, were the rumors about me being some kind of witch-boy; I guess I got careless while I was having fun flying the red-rock canyons above Placertown. Often, folks would talk about Aunt Grace's tastes in religion. Even though she had left behind the Believers, her religious quest continued in directions that I now know were theosophical. What might have been fine in San Francisco or Seattle was pretty exotic for Cedartown or Las Vinas, and word would spread. There was also one place where the rumors about Aunt Grace and me taught me some sharper words for illegitimate.

Luckily, by the time that particular storm cloud broke, I was hearing the voices of the earth. I wish I could describe this better than with fancy phrases about how soils seem to sing and stones to chant in deep, slow rhythms, but at least such words convey a sense of what I hear. In any case, I had already spent many hours exploring the backcountry of every place we lived, learning about lava badlands and tree-covered clay pits, granite cliffs and arid sand dunes, bottomland meadows and shore-side marshes. My wanderings, and the ancestral memories that came to me during them, hinted at how to persuade the rocks and dirt into doing what I needed. Since I was not much of a one for fighting, I would soon find it handy to have the earth on my side.

There is always someone who takes bad rumors as permission to bully. I was not much surprised when I got cornered on the way to my after-school job at the mill. Rubbing my shoulder, I backed away from Andy, the older kid who had ambushed me.

"Sissy bastard, I'm gonna break you in half," he told me. Then his eyes got wide as he fell over. I would have sworn you could hear the thud when he hit the ground clear over in Eureka. He was huge for being newly fifteen.

"You okay there?" I asked, keeping my distance. The dirt hummed contentedly as it billowed around Andy in a dusty embrace. Dirt was easy to coax into pulling him down since it already liked to cling and hold.

"Son of a bitch!" Andy wallowed around for a while, unable to get back up on his feet. All the time he tried, I kept circling around, making stupidly helpful comments while my steps explained my needs to the earth. I never got close enough that he could grab me. I did not want his mitts on me. The bruise starting where he had thumped me was enough damage.

"Hey, Andy," hollered one of the older kids who had gathered to watch. "Maybe you'd better work harder at tying your shoe laces." They all laughed. Andy's language in reply was spectacular, and I took my chance to skedaddle. I preferred that he not be reminded of who had first earned his wrath. Turned out, he was so busy cussing at the spectators that I made it around the company store before he noticed he could get up.

The next day in school, nobody believed Andy when he said the dirt had tripped him. Aunt Grace and I moved on at the end of that term, though.

Taken all in all, the two of us did well until I was seventeen. That was the year Aunt Grace got sick. I knew by then how our finances were always on the knife's edge, stretching through the summers with a difficulty only eased in recent years by my working after classes at whatever I could turn my hand to. However, the medicine, the doctor's visits, and the stay in the hospital quickly ate through the little we had set aside. Aunt Grace had also missed her chance to sign a teaching contract for the next year, not that it mattered with the doctor telling her to rest.

"There are others much worse off. We still have choices," she said. She was weak enough that I scooted my chair close to her bed so she would not have to raise her voice.

"I can delay more schooling for a year." I knew better than to say I could up and quit.

"Your sacrifice wouldn't be enough." She laid back, wrinkled hands neatly crossed atop the faded boardinghouse counterpane, seemingly thinking before speaking again. "One of the letters that arrived while I was in the hospital was from my home town of San Juan Patamos. San Juan is in California, not in Texas or the Territories," she added when I raised my eyebrows in inquiry. "Mrs. Hoskins, a friend and fellow seeker, recently died and left me her small house. We could sell the house and use the money until I am recovered, or we could return to San Juan, live in the house for a while, and conserve the value of the property for later."

Conserve it for my going to college, she did not need to tell me. I was thinking about when Aunt Grace would need to quit working for good, but the same considerations applied. "I guess I could live in this San Juan Patamos for a couple of years if you can stand going back there."

"While some might chatter about my return from the Believers, I doubt their numbers will be large, given the years that have passed since I left. I am more concerned about you. San Juan is a lovely town but also one much larger than any in which we have lived."

My only answer was a shrug. I had not grown more normal, but I was getting better at hiding my true nature. The memories that were not mine had taught me how to mute my inner hearing. I was careful about my flying. I hardly ever moved anything without using my hands these days, at least in public.

Aunt Grace studied me. "Have you recalled anything new lately?"

"Sure. Nothing unusual, only more memories of my ancestors, the People, flying around like birds back on that other world of theirs. I did see my twice-great grandfather persuading the earth again. Oh, and I remembered an uncle who pulled metal from the hills to make our starship."

"The one that your father's settlement used to come to this Earth?"

I nodded. She always sounded happy when we talked about the ship my kinfolk used to flee their dying planet. The Eutepsoi Bible, alongside a lot of speculations that I had come to think were nonsense, mentioned starships. In fact, the Believers held that such a ship had been the true star over Bethlehem. Hearing about my ancestral memories of the People's starship seemed to make Aunt Grace feel like she had not wasted all those years in Moabi on tall tales.

"Well," she said musingly, her eyes half-closed. "Well, then. Since nothing guides us otherwise, let us try San Juan."

With another shrug, I said, "I go where you go."

II

Aunt Grace was right when she said that San Juan Patamos was lovely. Steep mountains reared up right behind the town and the Pacific sprawled out gleaming at its feet. The downtown lay on a narrow river plain where, on either side, the land rose into low hills penned between sea cliffs and the mountains. Every place I visited was blessed with pink or yellow cliffs, pale beaches, or dark, rich soils. Spicy-scented brush, coastal oaks, lemon groves, and the town buildings nicely decorated all this landscape. I could see why so many summer visitors stayed over and why the latest building styles in San Juan harkened back to Spain.

However, as Aunt Grace had also observed, San Juan proper was a lot more town than I was used to. Compared to the locals, I was a real backwoods Reuben, a true hick. I had never taken an elevator. I had never ridden in an automobile. I had never seen a flying machine. I had never visited a nickelodeon, let alone a proper vaudeville theater. Everything from the tall buildings downtown to the amusement district around the pier was new to me. Looking back, I am amazed that I did not spend my first month walking around with my mouth hanging open. I suppose I was too worried to spare much time for feeling overwhelmed.

Mrs. Hoskins' house turned out to be a tiny cottage near the old fort and not worth much of anything. Our trip exhausted the little money we had left. After Aunt Grace was installed in a brass-frame bed with a view of our back garden, I went out to find work. There were no jobs to be had by an unknown youth of seventeen years who could not present local character references. In summer, at the height of the visitors' season, I might have found work washing dishes in a clam shack or selling seashells in some shop by the seashore. In late fall, I could not find anything, and I tried hard for a week.

At last, although I hated to disturb her, I consulted with Aunt Grace. Her local knowledge was out of date, but at least she had read bits and pieces about the town's recent years in Mrs. Hoskins' letters.

She put down her copy of _Thought Forms_ , and turned her attention to me. "Would you mind working as a laborer for a while?"

"Naw. No," I corrected at her pained look. "That wouldn't be much different than helping at the mill after school."

"Then, given how quickly San Juan is growing these days, you might want to try finding day labor at a construction site. Sometimes the builders need temporary, vigorous help. Since you are not seeking a trade apprenticeship, and since you are robust, you may meet their requirements." She smiled at me for a moment, and I smiled back. My body seemed to have figured out that I would have hard work to do, and I had grown large.

"I can do that. I'm good at shifting earth. With a shovel," I hastened to add.

"You always have enjoyed dirt. I should have known that bricks and stones might also suit you."

I grinned before saying, "I'll look around tomorrow. How about some fried egg sandwiches tonight? We still have bread that's not too stale."

The next morning, I had some luck at last. During my search, I had noticed that foundation work was starting at a site downtown on Union Street, not too far from our house. Figuring that nearby was as good a place to try as any, I got up early to go talk to the foreman and see if he needed someone to move dirt.

Although I approached him warily, the inner sounds around him were fine, kind of like a dented bugle warming up before a cavalry patrol. He looked me up and down, although more up than down since I was bigger than he was. "You old enough?" he asked me.

"Seventeen."

"Ever been in trouble?"

"No, sir."

"Worked a real job before?"

"Lumber mill upstate. A little wrangling. Clerk in a feed store for a while, out in New Mexico Territory."

His eyebrows rose. "You have any Spanish?"

"Yes, sir. Some."

"I could put you on a Mex crew." He waited to see how I would react to that. I smiled and nodded; there was not a fellow he could find who did not belong to this Earth more than I did.

"We don't pay much for day labor." He mentioned a wage that was better than I expected but still chicken feed. Not that I would refuse work at that rate; if you are hungry enough, you can eat chicken feed.

When I did not walk away, he asked me, "Why do you want the work?"

"My Aunt, Miss Wallace, is sick. She raised me. We need money just now."

He jerked a thumb toward one of the workers. "Go talk to Luis over there."

Sad to say, I likely got work not only out of the goodness of his heart, but also because I was less hung-over and blonder than the other laborers who asked that particular Monday. I think my mother was Scandinavian and I take after her, which helps me more often than it should. Lucky for me, my new work gang was nice about all this. After they found out I could speak some Spanish and heft a shovel, and after they had tried a little of the usual ragging, they let me be. Given how many places I had already worked, I knew better than to go after the local version of left-handed wrenches, snipe bait, or corral keys.

At the end of the day, Luis talked to Mike the foreman, and Mike told me I could show up again tomorrow. This went on for three days, restocking the pantry at our house. On the fourth day, I got a surprise.

I admit that, when I was new in a place, I listened to others with my inner hearing much more often than was otherwise my custom. Spotting the people who were always out of tune, spoiling for a fight or seeking to deceive, let me avoid tangles that did no one any good.

That Thursday, while I was shoveling dirt from a pile of fill into a wheelbarrow, I saw that a short man in a plain business suit and a hard-crowned hat - a derby - had come onto the site and gone to talk with Mike. When I turned to grab the handles of my wheelbarrow a few minutes later, and noticed they were both looking in my direction, I strained to hear what kind of sound this new fellow carried around with him.

It was gorgeous, like a guitar plucking out a sweet, sad song, the kind only played late at night when the bonfire has burnt down and the listeners are quietly watching the sparks fly up overhead. I wanted to wheel right over next to him and stand there enjoying his melody. While I gaped, telling myself not to be a fool, he must have sensed my attention. He looked up and his gaze caught mine. For a moment, he seemed surprised. Given how ordinary his features were, I guess he was not stared at every day. Then he smiled briefly before returning to his conversation. Shaking my head at myself, I wheeled my dirt over to where it belonged.

During lunch, I asked Luis, "Who was that gent in a suit talking to Mike this morning?"

"That was Mr. Woolman, of Woolman and Sons, the company which employs us all. Best not to spit upwind of him, youngster."

"Truly, I will keep all of my spittle for myself."

The fellows laughed before they turned the conversation to an upcoming dance at their fraternal hall. I settled for peeling my orange while giving myself a severe, silent talking to.

At quitting time, as he was handing out the day laborers' pay, Mike asked me, "Do you want to keep at this job as a regular worker?"

Startled, I blurted, "You bet."

"Talk to the pay clerk when he shows up tomorrow." He must have seen the question on my face because he shrugged and said, "Mr. Woolman was pleased you're taking care of your old Auntie. Guess he'd heard of her." With a glare, he added, "Not that you'll be getting out of any work on that account."

I nodded my understanding, pocketed my day's wage, and left for home.

Aunt Grace was interested by my news. She tapped forefinger to lip in thought before saying, "That must have been Simon Woolman. Mrs. Hoskins mentioned that he had come home to run his family's business after his older brother died of diphtheria." Looking a little sad, she said, "What a pity. Alan was such a nice young man, and I believe Simon had been making something of a name for himself as a photographer up in San Francisco. He always was artistic."

"You knew him?"

"He was in one of my classes. A bright boy and quite sensitive. One could sense the spiritual vibrations of an advanced soul even then." The gaze she turned on me was speculative, so I was quick to change subjects to the chance of our obtaining library cards. Not that I distrusted Aunt Grace's opinions about most matters, but this was the one secret I had kept to myself. I was not ready to decide what I was going to do about my inclination to moon over other men.

***

At first, I had not realized that anything was different about me that bloodlines from another world could not explain. What I favored was not discussed in polite company, and smutty talk bored me. I found it hard to get enthused about secretly swapping French postcards while chewing stolen Bull Durham when I knew my own secrets could also get me stared at like a monkey in the zoo. I had no way of knowing that, as I carried a girl's books or brought her a lemonade at a Church Social, I was not feeling the stirrings other boys my age did.

I do not know what kind of trouble my tongue might have found for me if I had been less used to keeping my own council. I could not help but notice how certain fellows pleased me best out of all the folks I met: a steel-spectacled, towheaded schoolmate who loved watching and sketching birds, the sharp-witted young salesman who cracked bad jokes and was patient with kids pawing over his sample gewgaws, a Chinese cook who spent a late hour every evening practicing poses as graceful as a stag's but could also reprove a drunken lumberjack and survive. Those folks haunted me as I grew older and my blood grew warmer, and it did not escape my attention that they were all males.

Just as well, then, that I enjoyed small settlement mixers like dances, parties, and sleigh rides. While taking shelter in the obscurity of a group, I had noticed the courting couples around me and how their inner sounds intertwined. Sometimes they merged, sometimes they clashed, sometimes they syncopated, and sometimes they harmonized: the changes caused by pairing were too loud to ignore. I learned these new sounds, the inner music of attraction, before I learned to shut them out.

I had also learned when I should start eavesdropping. When I confirmed from his clangorous noise that a particular foreman who praised me was as intent as a hungry dog eying a Virginia ham left alone on the dining room table, I was not surprised. I was careful to be earnest and dull around him. I also found that a certain cowhand's attitude toward me yearned wistfully without presuming, as if I were a fine and promising colt too young for cutting out cattle. I wish I had mustered the courage to ask him some questions before Aunt Grace and I moved on again. Even without the questions, he showed me a good way to deal with notched reins, spun me some crackerjack tall tales, and taught me, without intending to, the pleasures of innocent flirtation.

Less pleasing were the laborer, and later the minister, who were both more interested in other fellows than in their wives. What I heard around those married couples was painful and wrong, audible enough that I could no longer mistake what was expected of me for what was right. I would not be marrying. However, all this eavesdropping had also left me with a yearning, even an ache, for intimate company. I did not want to be alone.

While that San Juan commercial building rose around me, I spent the rest of the year and the beginning of the next longing for I did not know what. Many times, I daydreamed about finding my father's people and soaring alongside some handsome fellow who could move mountains with his mind and quench my wanting with his hands. Too bad that I knew these notions were only woolgathering. Even if any People besides my father had survived to wander this Earth, I had never seen anyone like me in my passed-down memories of the Home, a man who longed for other men.

I recalled those fellows who had pleased me, daydreamed about what I could have done if their inclinations had been more like mine. There were even times when I would watch Mr. Woolman as he checked on our progress - being punctilious, he did this often - and spin stories for myself that were neither very proper nor very probable. I was just smart enough to know that these stories were not really about him, but more about my groping for ways to have my cake and shovel it all into my cakehole without a bellyache, too.

At least Aunt Grace got better. For weeks, she slept a lot and read a little, rising only to cook an occasional meal when my limited menus got too trying. I was relieved when she started puttering around the house. Then she took over the housework from me and made cautious trips around the town, trips that lengthened until she was walking with the same brisk step I was used to. When she told me she would be teaching the next year in her old school, replacing a lady who had left to get married, I was glad.

"I'll have to keep working while I finish up my schooling, but we're about done with this building," I told her over the celebratory chicken and dumplings. We were still pretty short on money, and property tax was coming due.

"Never mind," she told me. "I have a plan."

A plan: Aunt Grace had a plan, all right. If I had known exactly what her plan was, I would have been tempted to follow Huck Finn's example, leave her dumplings behind, and light out for the Territories.

III

There are many experiences in life more embarrassing than being eighteen and sent off with a letter to a man about whom you have been spinning smutty daydreams, but I do not wish to live through any of them. Suffice it to say that, when I edged my way into the offices of Woolman and Sons, I half-wished everyone there would ignore me.

No such luck. "Yes?" the lady at the front desk asked me.

"I have a message for Mr. Woolman. For Mr. Woolman himself."

For once, my soil-stained work clothes were a recommendation. After examining me, she got up, went through the door behind her, and vanished for a minute or two. When she did return, she said, "Follow me, young man."

I followed. She led me through the door, down a corridor and past a big office where a pair of fellows were arguing over a drafting board, on by a second office with three young ladies typing in it, and stopped before another door with an even more formidable lady behind the desk nearby. There, she abandoned me.

This new lady got up, knocked on her door, opened it after a brief pause, and announced, "The messenger from the site, Mr. Woolman." Then she turned to me and said, in a tone that reminded me of my aunt, "You can go in."

Taking a deep breath, muffling my inner hearing so thoroughly that I could not even sense the earth below this building's foundations, I did.

When I walked in and got a good look around, I was surprised by how plain Mr. Woolman's office was, especially after all the fuss to reach him. His oak furniture was new but stark in style, piled high with neatly stacked papers and books. The walls of his room were bare except for a few photographs in frames that I wished I had more time to study. At his roll-top desk, the man I had been trying to avoid looking at wore the same suit I had seen him wear that first day at the construction site. He had swiveled toward me in his chair, and his expression was quizzical.

To my annoyance, I could feel myself flush. I yanked off my already battered derby. "I'm not a messenger, sir. I mean, I have a message, but it's not from the Sperry site." Getting a hold of myself, I said, "My aunt, Miss Wallace, wanted me to bring you this letter. It's my lunch."

I saw his lips twitch. "I don't doubt you, friend. That this is your lunch time, I mean." He stretched out his hand, and I gave him the letter. "Why don't you sit down while I read?"

After a search, I spotted a ladder-backed chair that was not too burdened to clear. Once I had shifted the building plans it held onto the table beneath the windows, I picked up the chair, put it down by his desk, and sat with care. As I grew into my adult bulk, I was hearing the occasional warning creak from furniture.

His attention was all on the letter, but my attention was focused somewhere above his head. I recognized the San Juan beach hotel bright with sunshine in the picture over his desk. It was a good photograph; I would have liked to try one of the loungers on the hotel lawn even without the extra bonus of not having to face Mr. Woolman there. However, there was something odd about the picture's lighting, something I could not quite identify.

Then Mr. Woolman looked up. His eyes were not as blue as I had remembered them, and his voice proved to be an unremarkable baritone when he said, "Bud Wallace. I don't recall Miss Wallace as having any relatives to speak of."

"I was an orphan. She raised me. That makes me more like her son, really, but you know how folks are."

"I do. From what I've seen, the two of you do well by each other, so let gossip go hang. You don't know what she wrote?"

"I bet she asked you to find me another job, one where I could go back to school."

"A sharp enough guess to confirm that you are hers."

"'Half-learned and half-starved is better than not learning and not starving.'"

"If that's a quote, she hasn't changed a bit." His tone turned brisk. "Given that you have a decent education, have worked construction, and have a little experience clerking, you could take a position here as an office boy while you finish high school. For anything more than that, of course, we would have to wait and see. Is this suggestion to your satisfaction?"

All the daydreams in which I knew him made my tongue get away from me before I could think. "I guess that would be okay." My tone was glum. "One of the brick gangs is letting me be their hod carrier. That's swell, but I don't think working up to bricklayer is what Aunt Grace has in mind for me."

This time he did not bother to hide his amusement. "She does goad her protégées. I remember her testimony to me about the value of art." Then it was his turn to fall silent and be glum for a bit.

I looked at him. You cannot say, "I'm sorry you don't get to take as many photographs these days," to a fellow you have just met, so I settled for, "Thank you for the job, sir."

"Simon. I prefer plain address from my employees."

Using his first name was kind of strange, but this was his office. "Thank you, Simon." All right, using the first name of my big-boss-to-be was very strange. However, this was still his office. "Is there someone outside that I should talk to?"

"Speak with Belinda, my secretary. She will tell you where and when to report after you are done with your work on the Sperry Building site." With that, he swiveled his chair back around to his desk and picked up his fountain pen. Still with my derby in hand, but feeling a little less awkward, I exited his office to inquire about my new job. At least I had enough sense not to call his secretary, Mrs. Hill, Belinda.

***

Before coming to San Juan, I had never considered that fog might have its uses. I learned better, once freed from carrying hod. I had not known how tuckered out I was until I switched jobs. Even after a short and progressive nine-hour workday, I had been coming home exhausted to face doing my chores and taking care of Aunt Grace. However, as soon as I rested a bit, I felt the call of my gifts again. My renewed need for privacy taught me the value of the fogs that often rolled in over San Juan from the Pacific during warm afternoons.

Once the billows grew so thick that sight was obscured, I would hurl myself upward from our tiny backyard, rising through wet grayness into the cold and brilliantly blue skies above. Then, after wrapping the sun's warmth around me, I would soar inland to where the fog banked against the mountain slopes. In that wild backcountry, I could perch atop boulders above the fog or wander the steep slopes with no one but birds and cattle to see me practice my gifts and persuasions.

Those Californian peaks had keener sounds, faster tempos to them than the lands I had known before. The local earth struck me as eager, slowly changing in a manner that I did not comprehend. However, it was also a land of rocks and soils easy to persuade, willing to shift at my least coaxing or at the tiniest tugs of the sunlight that I had learned, from my fragmented, inherited memories, to weave into patterns of power.

Other times, I would sit and savor my memories of the Home, the destroyed planet of the People. Those memories were lovely but somehow did not make me yearn as I sensed they should. Maybe my mother's blood or my dissentions from normal ways had weakened their pull. Still, I remembered.

Several times, I lingered so long that I had to fly home after sunset. I learned the uses of night, as well. Between the sounds of the lands and structures I flew over and Aunt Grace's careful lessons about the stars above me, I had no trouble finding my way in the dark. Playing the owl, dressed in dark clothing, I enjoyed more freedom around crowded San Juan that I had in most of the tiny settlements where I grew up. Mind you, my Aunt did give me a minatory look when she told me the neighbors thought some palm rats or ravens were nesting in our old oak trees, but she was kind enough to leave me be.

Two years passed. I graduated high school but kept on working at Woolman and Sons, now as clerk and general errand boy. My colleagues were amiable and I liked construction; all the stones, cement, bricks, and steel in buildings seemed to speak to me even on paper. While I put off college, hoping to save up money in the bank to shield Aunt Grace against any more trouble, the fog gave me another and surprising gift.

One Sunday afternoon in summer, when I had chanced a slow trip up through the fog to clear my head after a late night dancing at the ballroom on the pier, I realized that my risk of being seen as I landed was much higher than I had thought before I took off. After pondering for a bit, I chose to descend gradually and land on the roof of the building where Woolman and Sons had their offices. I was less likely to be seen through the thinning fog around a tall building's rooftop than the even thinner fog on the streets below.

By the time I reached the roof I sought, I was soaked through. After shaking off my hat, I got out my keys and let myself in through the door to the stairwell. I had to take the stairs since the elevator attendant had Sundays off. Too bad: living in a big town had taught me that I loved elevators even if the fine details of their mechanisms still baffled me. Still, I was in a good mood as I descended. Only habit kept me from whistling all the way.

At my own floor, I detoured to grab the towel I kept stowed in a bottom drawer of my desk for cleaning up after site visits. Strolling down the now-familiar corridor, I saw that Mr. Woolman's office door was open. I glanced in idly as I went by. A few steps later, I stopped dead. Then I doubled back.

A man who flies also walks lightly unless he forces himself to do otherwise. I had not interrupted Mr. Woolman either passing or returning. He still sat in the familiar, ladder-back chair, his hands resting lightly on his trousered knees, his eyes closed and his expression one I knew from an occasional reflection glimpsed in a mirror or window. He was listening.

To my relief, Mr. Woolman - Simon - had stopped wandering into my wilder daydreams months ago. My imagination had been tugged away from him first by a young fisherman who liked to sing as he loaded his lobster cages at the wharf and then by a wise-eyed fellow who worked in the box office at the new picture palace. In addition, I had been learning what kind of a man Mr. Woolman was. Finding out that he was a fusspot about site safety, that he loved taking photographs of old churches filled with light and shadow, that toasted alligator pear sandwiches were a weakness of his, and that cellophane collars frustrated him to the point of fuming, made it hard for me to use him as a puppet to act out my desires.

That knowledge did not help me now. Fresh from flying, believing I was alone, my inner ears were wide open. As he sat there listening, I heard the sound surging around him, and it was as pure and soaring as flight. No, it was better: an army glorious with banners. I needed to-- Well, I did not know all of what I needed, but I sure needed it bad. The thrum of my need sank down into the very marrow of my bones.

Sunlight sifted through the tall sash windows onto him, and he seemed to glow in its light. I must have made a noise. His eyes opened, and I saw surprise give way to pleasure. Even as I hastily muffled my inner hearing, that pleasure seemed to retreat without altogether disappearing. Then his expression shifted to puzzled. "Bud?"

"Sorry, sir-- um, Simon. I was out in the fog and thought I would get a towel from my desk. I didn't mean to, ah, interrupt?"

He smiled. "You're not interrupting. I choose to take your arrival as a sign I'm finished. It's time for lunch. Care to join me?"

"Okay." I should have said no, but I never did. He often asked this or that employee to join him at the nearby drugstore's lunch counter. I'd been one of his draftees many times, which was how I found out about the alligator pears. He likely wanted to keep his fingers on the pulse of the main office, but he also seemed to enjoy talking about matters like marble quarrying or the merits and demerits of dime novels versus those of _The Argosy_.

Getting his suit coat and hat down from the rack, he put them on and then pulled shut his office door before asking me, "Do you want to stop for your towel?"

"Yes." I was still pretty damp. Down the hall, I unlocked and opened the door to the office I shared with two other clerks. "If you'll excuse me for a minute or two?"

I ducked inside. After taking off my coat, I unbuttoned my collar and cuffs, rolled up my shirtsleeves, grabbed my towel, and used it to dry off. Then I stretched before running one hand through my hair in an attempt to settle my cowlick into place. No good. However, as I tried again, I caught a quick glimpse of his face.

He looked away, but he had not been fast enough. I felt myself swallow. Proving that he had strong nerves, he looked back at me and smiled. "Are you ready to go?"

"Oh! Oh sure, your melody drowns it out."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, I meant-- Not drowns it out, but it blends right in--" Heck, I could not tell him about my inner hearing. "Look here. You like men, right? Like me?"

I might as well have hit him with a ball peen hammer.

Rattled, I blurted, "Why can't I talk when I am talking to you?"

He took a deep breath. I could see him collect himself, and he did a good job. His tone was as mild as milk when he said, "You do fine on normal occasions, as when we discuss cement. Otherwise, your problem might be due to your also, ah, liking men."

"I meant that you like men the way I do, not that you like me in particular. But more so. You know, you like men but more so." I considered my latest effort. "Hooray. Once more, I am fifteen years old."

"Friend, you are unmistakably not fifteen years old."

"Well, that's good, at least."

We took some time to examine each other. I do not know what he saw, but I saw the chance for answers to a lot of questions. Also, I liked his tie today. I liked all of him, to tell the truth, liked him but more so than more so. I longed to eavesdrop again although that would not be fair.

He asked me, "Do you have a great deal of experience liking men, as you put it?"

"No."

He was kind enough not to tell me how predictable my answer was. Instead, he nodded and said, "Come to lunch."

On the way down the flights of stairs to the foyer, he suddenly said back over his shoulder, "I apologize for being obvious."

"Not very obvious, seeing that I have worked for your company for well over three years now and only noticed you watching me today. Also, I am not sorry."

"Nonetheless. It would be equally rude of me to be caught ogling Miss William's ankles."

"Does Miss William have nice ankles?"

"From a purely aesthetic point of--" He stopped dead, and I had to step quickly to keep from plowing into him. When he turned, his look was appreciative. "Neatly played. Very well, I will not reproach myself for looking, merely for courting peril."

Having risky secrets of my own, all I could do was nod agreement.

He said, "However. I have to ask. Exactly what is it that you want from me? Favor? Guidance? Knowledge?"

"That last. Well, that and some company."

"I can provide knowledge. I can also provide some company. Some." His hand tightened on the stair railing. "There are men you may wish to meet who might provide more. I can make introductions." He turned to start down the stairs again.

I wanted to grab him and say how beautiful he was, how I did not want anyone for second best given what I knew about him. However, there was no way to explain such words without revealing my other secrets.

That ached. Always having had Aunt Grace and her warm, matter-of-fact approval while growing up, I had never felt the full burden of being set apart until now. Shaking my head at myself, I followed him down the stairs.

Before we exited the stairwell, I halted him with a hand on his shoulder. After peering into the foyer to make sure we were alone, I said, "I will not pretend that I don't want more, won't want more, but all right. Please introduce me around. Maybe we could also be friends? I know you're my boss's boss, but--"

"If I say no, what will you do? Don't answer that; I shouldn't jab at you for wanting something I want, too. Tell me instead what you found out about the load of cross-ties that went missing."

Over at the drugstore, we talked about business, and schooling, and about whether or not any of the artists who wandered through town were any good. He ordered an alligator pear sandwich on toast. Then I let him know how Aunt Grace was doing and passed on a few stories about what the kids in her latest class had been getting up to. I was drinking a strawberry phosphate while he grumbled about _The Birth of a Nation_ , so I almost choked when I realized how slow I was being. Pulling the straw from my mouth, I said, "We are friends. Already."

A smile came and went. "So it seems."

"Gosh. I am sharp as a tack today."

"You also have had quite the shock."

I looked at him. His eyes were amused. That goaded me into doing what any self-respecting young man does when he wants his boss to notice him. "Would you like to come over and have dinner with Aunt Grace and me? Wednesday evening, maybe?"

I had startled him. "I would," he said, and blinked. I do not think he had meant to accept.

Just before we went our separate ways outside the drugstore, I paused and asked, "If I may inquire, what were you doing in your office when I walked by?"

Whatever question he had expected me to ask - and on a busy downtown sidewalk, too - this was not it. His gaze grew intent. "I was listening. Listening for the voice within."

Although I am not sure how much of my reaction showed on my face, it must have been a fair piece. He spun around and walked off with the air of a fellow who does not dare to linger, much though he may want to do so.

I strolled home, glumly wondering how hiding secrets from a fellow I wanted so much would feel. Hiding from my childhood pals had not been fun, but this-- Aunt Grace was off at her esoteric sewing circle, so I had plenty of time to sit down in my armchair, put my feet up on an ottoman, and think. After a while, I tried Simon's method and listened, instead. I did not hear any answers, but I did realize, at least, that there were important questions that I had not been asking.

When I heard the front door open, I got up to make sure I was not needed to tote bags. Aunt Grace was empty-handed, but I lingered to hear about her latest investigations into petit point and cryptic knowledge, while she removed her coat, gloves, and hat. I saw she had one less hatpin than she had worn when she had left, an occasional occurrence ever since Moabi. After she was done with the news of her sewing circle, she eyed me quizzically and said, "You seem to be bursting with news."

"I asked Simon - Mr. Woolman - over to dinner on Wednesday."

She took the news calmly. "That seems only fair, given how often he treats you and your colleagues to lunch." After leaving her purse, gloves, and hatpin on the foyer table, she asked, "Is there something else?"

"No. At least, nothing I can talk about right now. I need to do some more thinking, first. Except--" I got the rest out in a rush. "Did you ever want to go flying with me?"

For a moment, she was surprised. "Bless you, child, you know I even take ill on trains." She pursed her lips. "I will say one thing. Since I taught you to be careful, I have never held this against you. However, given that our neighbors cannot see through walls, you do not need to be so very quiet when you are getting down dishes from the back of the highest kitchen cupboard while standing across the room."

Feeling a little sheepish and a lot pleased, I scooped up the hatpin that had rolled off the foyer table onto the floor and returned it to her without using my hands. With a smile, Aunt Grace plucked the pin from where it floated in the air and then said, "I believe...Yes, I believe we are doing well enough to buy a ham for when Simon comes to dinner."

IV

Somehow, at Aunt Grace's instigation, Simon ended up coming to dinner every other week. I also found myself being eased into Simon's social circles. Apart from a little ribbing by my fellow clerks, no one seemed to care; I learned I had been viewed as his protégée ever since I came to work at Woolman and Sons. That jaded acceptance now served me well since I did not want extra attention. A few of the folks I was meeting were people like Simon and me.

They were a battered and wary bunch, but I liked them. Hiding from others made them huddle together for warmth. Sure, there was some bickering and backbiting, but it was the kind of contention I vaguely remembered from Moabi Colony, the squabbling of a large family. At last, I had found a small settlement where I half-belonged. I started making friends.

Mind you, since I was still learning the local ways, it took me a while to know when I was being pursued. I finally asked one of my new pals - let us call him Howard - over chess one night, "Are you trying to get me to fornicate with you?"

"Dear Bud, of course I am." Then his expression went a tad chagrinned. "Or do you have some sort of understanding with Simon?"

"No. Maybe. Not yet." Examining the board warily, I shifted my queen's rook.

"Now, there's a clear answer. Check."

I chewed my lip. "Neither is he. Very clear, I mean."

"No, he is not, as I can tell you from past experience." Howard's smile was mean, but I had found he often looked like that when he was about to be kind. "A certain, well, easy openness to experience is expected of those who move in our circles. Simon, in large part, abstains. However, he has also never drawn aside the hems of his garments from us, so we love him nonetheless. It would be amusing if he had finally met his match."

Sliding my bishop in from across the board, I asked, "Checkmate? In, uh, three moves?"

"I, for one, intend to enjoy the spectacle of the two of you wandering around, mooing at each other like lonely cows in the fog." With an even meaner smile than before, he tipped over his king.

"Would it help if I mooed?" I asked Simon, the next time we had lunch together.

"I have just enough sense to ignore that question, whatever it might mean. Are you, or are you not, going to take those mechanical drawing courses at State Normal?"

They would cut into my brand-new social life. I sighed. "I am."

"Good. I can understand your recent reluctance to go away to university," a glint came and went in his eyes, "but entirely wasting your knack for building would be a shame. You'd be capable of original design with a little more general education. I wish you could take some geology and engineering courses: I'd imagine you could handle both, especially since you already have most of your mathematics."

I held up both hands. "Fine, fine, I surrender. How can I possibly convince you that I am willing, even eager, to be taught all kinds of things?" My smile was as dazzling as I could make it.

He stared at me for a moment. His lips twitched. He picked up his sandwich, took a bite, and mashed green squirted out. Alligator pear does that if you clutch too hard.

Simon looked down. Then he placed his sandwich very carefully back on its blue-rimmed plate and picked up a napkin to dab at his tie.

"You want a two cents plain for that, Mr. Woolman?" Charlie asked him from behind the counter.

"Yes, please. The whole day has been like this," he added to me, accepting the glass of soda water from Charlie and using it to continue his efforts at salvage. "I tried to take some photographs on the beach at sunrise, and--" he broke off, shaking his head. "This tie is ruined."

"It's not your best. And I know what you mean. There's a water seep come in at the Camillo Street site, leaving mud everywhere. Also, Mr. Everett is complaining about those roof tiles again."

"Not our fault, but we'll have to make that right. I'll meet with him. Not today, though. I don't want a pointless argument. We're all as restless as cattle before a thunderstorm."

Even the earth seemed tense, poised and waiting, but I could not tell him that. "Likely the weather." The day was very hot for San Juan.

"You may be correct. At least it's a Friday." He thought. "Send Mike a note. No half-day tomorrow at Camillo; we'll need to have a look at that seep. Also, stop by the St. Nicolas Brewery on the way back to the office. Purchase a couple of cases of quart bottles from the cold cellar and have them delivered to the site around quitting time. Enrique can distribute them along with the pay packets. Root beer, too, enough for the teetotalers and families."

"Okay."

"Sorry about your tie, Mr. Woolman," Charlie said, sliding me down my usual phosphate.

"No, I'm sorry about your counter. I'm not usually such a sloppy eater," he said with a sideways glace at me. "Oh, well. Perhaps tomorrow will be better."

***

That night was no better than the day before had been. I lay awake in the heat until midnight and then, when I did doze off, woke at half past five. Aunt Grace was down the coast in Greenfields, nursing one of her sewing-circle friends through a bout of neuralgia, so I had set my alarm clock on top of a pie tin. Sitting bolt upright, I glared at the clock. Then I floated it back to where it belonged from the floor. Most mornings I was not nearly so forceful shutting it off, but today I had woken surly.

Even so, I got up, dressed in my old work clothes, and fried myself a couple of eggs from the icebox. The previous evening, I had decided that I would go down to the Camillo site early in the morning and examine the groundwater seep. Safe from onlookers, I might be able to coax the groundwater into seeping elsewhere, which would save Woolman and Sons a lot of trouble. In addition, the seep intrigued me. That neighborhood had always been known for its dry soils.

This morning, I was no longer intrigued, but the day was bright and I was already out of bed. I pushed myself back from the table and left my dishes in the sink for later. As I went out the front door, I grabbed my derby off the rack in the hall.

At least these early Saturday mornings were quiet. Tipping my hat to a neighbor determined to get a head start on her flowers, I turned the corner to walk toward Union Street. When I got downtown, the streets were so empty that I dared to open my inner hearing as I strolled and check if the earth was still tense.

The earth was not tense. Rather, it thrummed like the bowstring of Apollo releasing. I stopped dead in my tracks, looking around wildly. Buildings, streets, lampposts, even a parked Model T: nothing was out of place. However, as I stared, the clock on the old courthouse chimed the quarter hour. That was when it hit.

I cannot describe the noise. Everyone awake heard the huge sound like a trainload of dynamite exploding beneath our feet, followed by the first, fierce jolt as the earth began to pitch. The inner noise, though-- I could say it was like the massed shout of an army beginning a charge, the scream of a stallion breaking free from a burning barn, but I would be doing what I heard no justice. I was stunned. I would have fallen to my hands and knees even if the earthquake had not thrown me down. After seconds that seemed to last hours, the outer noise and motion paused for a moment before the roar and shaking began again, stronger than before.

Dazed, deafened, I looked up in time to see the entire brick façade of the McAllister Building peel away and cascade toward me. Without thought, I sat back on my heels, threw my arms wide, and shouted a word of the People. My gesture was ridiculous; the word was not. The falling bricks separated like whitewater cascading around a boulder, tumbling and crashing down in twinned streams onto the sidewalk to either side of me. One brick bounced and struck me in passing; I fell onto my back. There I stayed, panting and coughing, as the shaking ended and a huge cloud of shattered mortar, pulverized brick, and dust rose up around me.

After a few seconds of waiting, I shoved aside the other bricks that had slid or tumbled onto me. I was in a valley between two hills of masonry that still shifted even as I stood up. At least my only injuries were bruises, scrapes, and a trickle of blood from that first brick. My faithful derby lay crushed beside me.

As quick as I could, I crunched and sidled out into the street. Then I looked around, squinting against dust. As far as I could see up and down Union Street, most of the building facades were now so much rubble. A couple of buildings had completely collapsed. Yanking my bandana from my pocket, I staunched the blood from my cut scalp as best I could while trying to listen with my inner ears.

That hurt. I was like a kid who had stood too close to a cannon fired on the Fourth of July. Even so, I strained to detect the faint sounds that would mark other humans beneath the earth's continuing tumult. When I realized how few folks had been downtown this early on a Saturday, I had to swallow hard against my relief. Then I had to cough some more.

However, the few folks audible were loud in their fear and pain. As I listened, one howl of dissonance died away into the profound, lyric silence that means someone has returned to the Presence. Beyond that silence, I could now hear a melody I recognized. I staggered down the street toward Simon.

Another, briefer shock threw me back down. More dust rose, and I heard the crashing of a chimney falling somewhere close at hand, but I got back onto my feet and kept going toward Simon. As I clambered across piles of debris to reach him, I do not think my boots always touched the rubble beneath them.

Woolman and Sons had lost their bid to build the destroyed structure I approached five years ago, a common occurrence, given how both Simon and his kin before him refused to lower their bids by skimping on materials or shoddy construction. If Simon was trapped here, the irony of his situation was acute.

Scrambling around the collapsed building where his sounds told me he must be, I passed a pile of shattered concrete that now marked someone's tomb. For the sake of those still living, I had to ignore the limp hand protruding from beneath the rubble.

I was far beyond caution. Having gotten as close to Simon as I could, I kneeled to embrace the unstable pile of masonry between us and pleaded for it to give way before my need. It yielded. I crawled forward into the debris, hearing the low, grating rumble as bricks and rubble shifted aside to clear my passage and then shifted together again after I moved by.

Burrowing like a mole, with my eyes closed against the grit and dust, I relied on my inner ears. When I reached the tiny cavity where my inner hearing told me Simon and someone else were trapped, I expected to open my eyes upon darkness. The faint, golden glow came as a shock. However, once that shock passed, I was somehow not surprised to see that the glow radiated from Simon.

Beams had jammed together above a heavy table, shielding them both from the larger chunks of debris. Simon was crouched at one end of this hollow, his eyes closed, his suit coated with dust, and his face streaked with blood and dirt. Hearing or no, radiance or no, I might have worried if I had not seen his expression. He was listening.

As I squirmed in next to him, he opened his eyes and saw me. "It seems you are my angel."

"Did something hit your head?"

"Never mind. Everett is beneath this table, but he's knocked out. His right arm is badly broken, and I'm not sure about his legs." He frowned. "You're bleeding."

"You're glowing. The blood's from a scalp wound; I guess I reopened it. I might be able to get us out." There was a loud creaking noise above us, a sound of rubble shifting.

"You had better be able to get us out. I don't think these beams will stand another aftershock." Without any change in his calm tone, he said, "I wondered if the secret you still hid was anything like my own. I thought that idea a notion born of my desire rather than any prompting by the inner light. So unlikely."

"I don't know; we were being nudged together? Or something. Can you move?"

"Yes, but Everett can't."

My mind scrambled for a moment before finding purchase. "How bright can you make that glow of yours?"

If I had not liked him before, I would have liked him then for not wasting any more time with questions or explanations. "Shield your eyes."

The glow around him flared until my slitted eyes teared, brightening into the glare of a noonday sun. I reached out for the brightness, sieved it from the hazy, choking air, and used it to weave a pattern of light that could lift boulders. As I did so, I murmured to the rubble around me. Then I freed the power woven into my pattern. Debris above us groaned, stirred, and then cascaded in the directions I had requested. When I was done, sunlight shone down the narrow passage that I had opened to the surface of the rubble. The brilliant light behind me died away.

I coughed some more from the new dirt I had stirred up. Then I spat and said, "I can get us out now." Only then did I realize that Simon had fainted.

With more sunlight to weave, Simon was easy to lift to the surface. However, as I returned to ease him out, I prayed that Mr. Everett would not awaken. Any struggling would distract me, and this rubble was unstable. I was having to keep part of my attention on persuasion.

Simon was awake when I carefully worked Mr. Everett free of the tunnel. He looked at me groggily before trying to sit up.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Better than I would have expected. The same can't be said of Mr. Everett." He peered around from our precarious perch, likely seeking more aid. It was his first view of downtown. His features went slack with shock.

"If you can walk, we could take Mr. Everett and, um--"

"Pretend to carry him down this hill while you actually move him? Good idea."

When we had sidled and slid down the rubble, I let Mr. Everett settle gently onto a stretch of bare pavement. As I stood upright, I ceased my persuasion. The huge heap of debris behind us groaned loudly, creaked and grated, and collapsed in upon itself. More dust billowed up. A fellow helping dig farther down the street looked over in our direction, let out a holler, and ran toward us.

As we waited, I realized I was trembling with exhaustion. I said, "I don't think any of the Woolman construction collapsed."

"I hope not. I could wish that none of these buildings had collapsed." Walking over to the nearby pile of masonry, Simon took out his handkerchief and spread it across the limp and bloody hand still reaching vainly toward escape.

***

Late that night, I cradled a mug of coffee between my hands as I studied Simon. He had been leading one of the crews sweeping through the damaged buildings, searching for casualties and freeing anyone trapped. Now that I knew what to watch for, I had seen how he could judge someone's condition with a glance.

Noticing my regard, he looked at me and smiled. Then he slid closer along the low wall on which we perched. "Gifts seem so rare. I wasn't sure I'd ever meet anyone else tasked like this," he said, voice low.

"I never suspected you at all. After studying all those old paintings and photographs of your ancestors hanging in the meeting room, I knew you couldn't have come from the People."

"Those pictures are a familial indulgence, but after Alan died, I just could not force myself to--" He stopped and raised his eyebrows. "The People?"

"My father came from another world."

"I suppose that explains some of the unique quality of your light," he said, rather blankly. Then, noticing a workman coming toward us, he quickly added, "All are equal in the sight of God. Someday I would like to hear about your People." Turning to the workman, he asked, "What is it?"

"Message from Doctor Carrillo. He says Mr. Everett should be fine."

"Thank you, Billy." Simon clapped me on the shoulder, and we both got up to go see if anything else needed to be done.

Twelve people died that day, but most of San Juan fared amazingly well. Houses endured the earthquake much better than the commercial buildings did, given how shoddily built the latter had often been during the recent boom. However, a handful of the smaller, older houses did collapse. I had reason to be grateful for Mrs. Cabot's neuralgia. Aunt Grace's and my house was one of the casualties.

"My house survived intact," Simon told Aunt Grace the next morning, as she ruefully examined the heap of rubble to which we had escorted her. "You are welcome to come and stay with me for as long as you wish."

Her nod was brisk. "Of course we will." When I started to protest, she fixed me with a minatory eye. I subsided as she said, "Dear Simon. I know you have been lonely for company ever since the last of your kin passed onwards into the light."

A few hours later, as we trudged through the streets checking buildings for structural damage, I said, "Sorry about that."

He stopped. He looked up and down the empty street. Then he tugged me over into the shade of a bougainvillea cascading down a garden wall, reached up to firmly clasp my face, and kissed me. "I'm not," he said, his voice rough and low.

When I stopped kissing him in my turn, I demanded, "Then what in the world were you waiting for?"

Simon just grinned. Chagrinned, I said, "Sorry. I guess spooning makes me dull. There was no reason for you to know how easily I could accept you-know-what."

"Not merely that. I still might have gone ahead and requested your company if I had been certain that you would understand what you would lose by saying yes. Your own life has first claim upon you, not me."

"Sure, after love gets in its licks, not to mention my best path 'onwards into the light.'"

Even though I had rolled my eyes when I said "onwards into the light," his smile was brilliant enough not to need any additional glow from his gift.

The landscape around San Juan was still lovely, and the Pacific still gleamed at San Juan's feet. As the town rebuilt, more than our share of the construction came to Woolman and Sons. I was not the only one who had noticed that none of the Woolman-built buildings collapsed. Together, we fellows from the office and the construction foremen pored over the structures that still stood, and Simon added an obsession with extra tie-rods to his various traits and eccentricities.

In the four years before business slowed back down, I must have learned more about construction than I ordinarily would have learned in a decade. I learned enough that I could take on some of Simon's work. He spent the freed-up hours on his photography, experimenting with the subtle shifts of lighting that nudged his camera's results closer to what he saw with his inner vision.

Eventually Simon adopted me, which wasn't at all the right ceremony for what we were to each other by then, but is the only one my new kin has available to order our affairs. Aunt Grace's sewing circle was delighted, telling her what a fine job she must have done with her foundling for him to find so much success. She blithely ignored how Simon and I spent some of our hours together, able to cleave what was wrong from what was merely twisty with the keenness of her affection. She was also well shielded from rumor and doubt by the rococo details that pad her wisdom. All she ever said about Simon and me was, "I have gradually learned that spiritually advanced souls are drawn together by the spectra of each other's ethereal vibrations."

"Their colors, you mean?" I asked, bemused.

"Violets and blues predominate, dear. Although you might wish to try for a little more vermillion in the future."

I was happy to leave it at that.

We sometimes sit silently together, Simon and I. Usually I listen like he does, but every so often I remember, instead. Those memories seem to tug at me more these days, but I still feel no need to seek out kin I have never known, given how richly I have been gifted with kin of my choosing.

Simon disagrees. "You suspect someone might be out there, calling."

I shrugged.

"You should go see. Are you still afraid that they might not remember anyone like you in all the ages of your other world? That your people will have no testimonies meant for you?"

"Maybe. Maybe."

"Then perhaps you should go to them for their sakes, not your own. Perhaps they need to hear your testimony."

If you pair up with someone who listens, you cannot complain when he hears something. "If I ever do go looking, I'm taking you and Aunt Grace along. You're the ones who can speak to them of our world from your actions, not just with your voices."

Still, I guess Simon has a point. I might go looking, one of these days. I might, but only when I am sure that I search from love and not from loneliness and fear. In the meantime, I have found my refuge from Moab right here in San Juan, here where I can guard and cherish my fellows out in the world and not settle for hiding entirely away.

Sometimes there is more joy than sorrow in dissent.

**Author's Note:**

> At one of my state's hearings about same-sex marriage, I listened after a man stood to speak. He was a member of a local Society of Friends (Quaker) meeting, and told us of his testimony at other meetings about his marriage and how it let his husband help support him while he worked for charities full-time.
> 
> I am well (and formally) educated about the problems the religious impulse can cause and am one short step away from being an atheist, to boot. Nonetheless, hard though it is to convey, all I could think as I heard him speak of conviction, God, community, and love was, "This man has found his Inner Light."
> 
> Anyhow, this story is also for him.


End file.
